Branch Rickey Quotes

It is not the honor that you take with you, but the heritage you leave behind.

- Branch Rickey

I find fault with my children because I like them and I want them to go places - uprightness and strength and courage and civil respect and anything that affects the probabilities of failure on the part of those that are closest to me, that concerns me - I find fault.

- Branch Rickey

Thou shalt not steal. I mean defensively. On offense, indeed thou shall steal and thou must.

- Branch Rickey

Baseball people, and that includes myself, are slow to change and accept new ideas. I remember that it took years to persuade them to put numbers on uniforms.

- Branch Rickey

Never surrender opportunity for security.

- Branch Rickey

Ethnic prejudice has no place in sports, and baseball must recognize that truth if it is to maintain stature as a national game.

- Branch Rickey

Only in baseball can a team player be a pure individualist first and a team player second, within the rules and spirit of the game.

- Branch Rickey

Trade a player a year too early rather than a year too late.

- Branch Rickey

Problems are the price you pay for progress.

- Branch Rickey

I don't care if I was a ditch-digger at a dollar a day, I'd want to do my job better than the fellow next to me. I'd want to be the best at whatever I do.

- Branch Rickey

How to use your leisure time is the biggest problem of a ballplayer.

- Branch Rickey

Leisure is the handmaiden of the devil.

- Branch Rickey

The greatest untapped reservoir of raw material in the history of our game is the black race.

- Branch Rickey

The man with the ball is responsible for what happens to the ball.

- Branch Rickey

A full mind is an empty bat.

- Branch Rickey

A great ballplayer is a player who will take a chance.

- Branch Rickey

Baseball is a game of inches.

- Branch Rickey

Thinking about the devil is worse than seeing the devil.

- Branch Rickey

If things don't come easy, there is no premium on effort. There should be joy in the chase, zest in the pursuit.

- Branch Rickey

Cobb lived off the field as though he wished to live forever. He lived on the field as though it was his last day.

- Branch Rickey

Luck is the residue of design.

- Branch Rickey

All I had was natural ability.

- Branch Rickey